


The War For the Dawn

by EternalFangirl



Series: Season 8 can pry Pol!Jon and Jonsa from my cold dead hands [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: And like hell are the Starks gonna be scattered at the end of the world, BAMF!Sansa, Battle of Winterfell, By his hot cousin sister, Clinical exhaustion, F/M, Fix-It, Fucking crypts, Gen, Ghost does cool things, How do I fix the lighting in a fic?, How is that not a tag, Hurt/Comfort, I just wanted to adjust a few things dammit, I mean come on, Jon being fucking looked after, Jon is tired, Let's take the big bad down together, Sansa will kiss it better, Season/Series 08, Sponge Baths, The cool things that were promised
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-02-10 11:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18659737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalFangirl/pseuds/EternalFangirl
Summary: Fix-it for Season 8, Episode 3: The Battle of Winterfell.So the Dothraki got so excited by their flaming arakhs that they galloped into the army of the dead. Ghost decided to go with these strange people, and then just disappeared... As did the footage of Sansa fighting wights. The Starks were scattered in the face of Thrones' biggest supernatural villain, and Jon wasn't even there when his biggest nemesis died.First, I bitched about it on Tumblr. Then I said fuck it, and wrote this.[The Jonsa bit hasn't started. Kinda need the dead to disintegrate before we get to the angst and drama. The rating will change.]





	1. The Lady of Winterfell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Janina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janina/gifts), [meerareads](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meerareads/gifts).



> Come on, guys. The episode had problems. Granted, we could barely see most of them, but they were _problems_ still. That's why you are here.

Sansa's fingers were going numb with how hard she was clutching Arya's dagger. She knew it was stupid, there were no dead men rushing up to her in the courtyard, no icy White Walkers lurking in the stables.  _ Not yet, anyway. _

 

Ghost led the way, his breath misting in the air, his footsteps sure and unhurried. Unlike her, he never faltered, not even when the sky lit up with the orange glow of dragonfire, far off in the distance. Sansa looked up to the sky nearly every time it lit up, thinking of how Jon had looked riding a dragon. 

 

The night was so black that she hadn't even seen him at first, but then the dragons had let loose plumes of fire, illuminating the black sea of Death that was marching towards them. Jon and his queen had thinned their numbers from a great height, looking beautiful and deadly on their dragons, every inch the warriors. Hopefully, by the time the army of the dead reached the Unsullied and Dothraki at their gates, it was going to be half in size.

 

She was so frightened for Jon, alone in the sea of Death, riding a dragon that could be killed as easily as its brother had been.  _ He was right about the dragons, about how much we needed them. _ She surprised herself by praying to the warrior once more, asking Him to keep her family safe. Apparently, there was nothing like an impending death to bring back a person's faith in the Gods.

 

Ghost stood aside and waited for her to open the doors when he got to the entrance of the crypts, spooking the soldiers guarding it. She smiled, trying to reassure these men that nothing was amiss in the battle they could not see, and then she was walking down the steps into the cold, dark resting place of the Starks of old.

 

It stunned her for a moment, the silence.

 

Not even the babes were crying at the moment. The air was tense with a thick, black anticipation. Death was coming for all of them, and these people knew it. As Sansa made her way to Gilly and her son, people finally seemed to start noticing her, their gazes either vacant or terrified.

 

She understood the feeling. Suddenly, for a horrible moment, she was a stupid child again, stuck in Maegor's holdfast as the battle of Blackwater Bay clashed and raged outside the gates. She remembered what Cersei had said about the aftermath of battles, and she remembered what she had vowed all those years ago, in a bout of childish zeal.

 

_ If I am ever queen, I will make them love me. _

 

She took a deep breath and smiled when Ghost bent down to nudge her shoulder for support. She was nearly certain her smile looked warm and confident. 

 

"The battle is going well," she said, and didn't add the  _ for now _ . "His Gra--Jon and the queen have ridden the dragons out to the army of--the opposing army, and they are thinning out the enemy's numbers with dragonfire. The Unsullied and the Dothraki stand ready at our gates, but the enemy is losing numbers even before the battle has truly begun."

 

"The Night King?" asked Tyrion Lannister. "Is he here yet?"

 

They both knew what the Night King could do to dragons, with his dangerous weapons and superhuman aim. She knew what he was asking. How much danger are we in, of losing the dragons? How much danger is there of losing the dragonriders? 

 

Sansa tamped down on the terror that had seized her on the battlements. She couldn't lose Jon. She wouldn't. Not trusting her voice to remain steady, she simply shook her head at Tyrion, who nodded grimly back.

 

"Good," he said, and took a hearty gulp of ale from the skin he held.

 

Sansa squared her shoulders and turned to the other women, willing her smile to convey the confidence she didn't feel. Her hand held on to Ghost's fur, her grip possibly too tight for comfort.  _ If Lady were here, I wouldn't be afraid. _ Ghost wouldn't leave her. He would protect her.

 

"Now then," she said. "Have we finished ripping apart the linen for bandages?"

 

There was a sudden flurry of activity as the women produced their baskets once more, eager to do something to while away this black night. Tyrion began to help a group of women pluck nettle leaves from the branches that had been harvested from the wolfswood for days. They had been stacked here in the cold, next to the statue of Lyanna Stark.

 

Sansa knew that soon the sounds of battle would reach them. That would be the time for prayer. For now, they would work, and get ready for the aftermath of the worst battle ever fought.

* * *

 

When the fighting came to the courtyard, when the screams of pain and horror came too close to ignore, Sansa rose to lead them all in prayer. Some of the women were openly weeping, clutching their children to their bosoms as if that would shield them from the world, but most of the people were silent. She understood them well. There was a delicate balance in the air, a sort of breathless anticipation, and even a cry of fear felt like it would break the whole world apart. Instead, everyone felt curiously numb, going through their motions carefully, afraid to feel the terror that waited patiently for them to open the gates and let it in.

 

When Ghost began to growl, the children stopped the tentative games they are started in their innocence, and Sansa felt the dread creep into her bones. He hadn't really left her side since she had left the battlements, but now he moved impossibly closer. She had never heard him growl. She never wanted to again. She stared at the statue of her grandfather Rickard, knowing something was wrong, knowing they were under threat. 

 

"Get away from the statues," she whispered, willing her voice to sound strong. Strong or not, her whisper was heard, and the living leapt away from the tombs that stored centuries of dead.

 

When the dead began to rise, when the Starks of old rose like a beacon of inevitable death, that is when the screams began. Nearly everyone ran for the gates, but the dead were too fast, too feral. Ghost sprang in the opposite direction, snarling and snapping, and Sansa heard him rip apart the...  _ things  _ as she ran to the basket at her aunt Lyanna's feet. Only a few other people had remembered the dragonglass weapons that had been stashed there. Tyrion had already raised a dagger, his gaze skittering like a nervous filly, and he almost fell into the basket of weapons when he saw Ghost fighting behind her.

 

"The doors! Grab a weapon and head for the doors!" Sansa yelled as she pulled Arya's dagger from her belt and dove behind Lyanna's tomb. It felt strange in her clumsy hand, and she wanted to laugh at the absurdity of her first fight being against the dead.  _ My dead family _ , she thought hysterically. She wiped away her tears with shaking hands, impatient. If she stopped to think, to cry, she would shatter into a million pieces. 

 

Tyrion Lannister snuck in next to her, the terror she felt reflected in his eyes. They simply looked at each other for a few precious seconds, too afraid to look elsewhere, too scared of what would happen if they actually looked at the dead. Tyrion grabbed her hand, and it was a shock how much his touch comforted her. She wasn’t alone in the end. He kissed her glove in a silent goodbye.

 

Somewhere past her hiding spot, Ghost's pained whimper pierced through the sound of panicked footsteps. It was a terrifying sound, and it should have broken her, but somehow she felt an overwhelming wave of fury.

 

This was her  _ home _ . This was where the Kings of Winter had been laid to rest, where they were honored. The Night King and his evil magic did not belong here. Not in the Stark crypts, not in  _ her  _ home, not among  _ her  _ people. Ghost was hers. Jon had left him with her, and he had followed her faithfully, protected her and kept her safe. Now he was up against dead men, her  _ family _ . It was suddenly unacceptable. If she had to die, she would not cower and wait for her death to find her. She was a Stark of Winterfell. She would die fighting, like all the Starks that had been laid to rest here.

 

A deep breath, a whisper of a prayer, and she leapt out of her hiding place, her dagger pointed out in front of her as if it was a shield.

 

Whatever had caused Ghost to whimper was now lying motionless at his feet. He stood with his back to her, his paws straddling the creatures he had killed. Sansa averted her eyes, afraid that she would recognise one of the dead. Instead, she came and stood next to Ghost, who shifted closer, then leapt at two wights who started to shuffle closer to them.

 

There were still people rushing out of the crypts. Some had run the wrong way in their terror. “No!” she yelled after the women running deeper into the crypts. “Come back!”

 

Her shouts caught the attention of one of the wights Ghost was fighting, and it lunged for her. Cold, rusted steel glinted in its hand. She screamed even before it reached her. The blue eyes were unnatural, unseeing, and cold. It  _ smelled  _ cold, like death. She forgot to move, to breathe, to act. All she could do was watch it come closer, watch death march towards her, until it tried to tackle her to the ground.  _ It’s trying to embrace me, _ she thought hysterically, right before she went down under its weight.

 

But then it didn’t move at all. She had imagined the rusted sword piercing through her, had imagined her death to be agonizing, but…  _ I am not dead.  _ She tried to wiggle free, panting and shaking, only to realize that she couldn’t move her right hand. The dagger she was holding was jammed in the wight’s gut.

 

Disgusted, horrified, she pressed up with her entire weight till the thing was off of her. Suddenly, another one of those things was looming over her, and this time she didn’t think at all. She wrenched the dagger free, and drove it through the dead man. It’s armor was old and rusted, it’s flesh nearly gone. It was over very quickly, the dagger sinking through its chest, nearly slipping out of her hand when the wight fell to the ground. She shuddered and turned to Ghost.  _ Where’s Tyrion? _

 

“We need to get out of here, boy,” she told the wolf. He turned to her, his eyes glowing in the candlelight, and started to move. She followed, trying not to scream like a little girl when Ghost killed a couple other dead Starks. There was no one else after them, except the dead. She barely remembered to close the door after her, mourning the women who had run deeper into trouble, silently asking forgiveness.

 

She shivered in the cold, listening to the battle raging somewhere in the inner courtyard. For a moment, she was overtaken by an insane urge to cross the grounds and go see what was happening.  _ Don’t be stupid, _ she thought.  _ Running into battle is the stupidest way to die _ . 

 

But wasn’t that what she had just done?

 

Somehow, the state of the outer courtyard surprised her.  _ We’ve descended into the depths of the seven hells.  _ Nothing moved, and she had a sense that the battle had blazed through here too quickly, a sea of the dead crushing out all hope. She felt tears pricking her eyes, but she needed to see.  _ There’s no time to cry.  _ Ghost was still moving, a white shadow in the dark, quick and fierce.  _ Don’t look _ , she told herself.  _ Don’t look at the bodies, don’t look at the castle, don’t try to find friends among the dead. _

 

She knew where they were going. Ghost was taking her to Jon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [Tumblr!](aneternalfangirl.tumblr.com)


	2. The Ice Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Sansa face off against Viserion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Sansa looks out from the battlements and sees the debris of their defense, read that bit carefully. I changed the military tactics so the there were two trenches, the light cavalry was meant to flank the enemy, and the trebuchets were placed last to save them for as long as possible.

**Extra Author's Note (Required images):**

The whole chapter is set in the courtyard where Jon faced off Viserion in the episode. I would like to make the logistics of the space clear, so here's some badly edited screenshots:

1\. They begin here:

2\. And then move behind this wall here: 

And that's all you need. Enjoy!

* * *

 

Sansa could hear the fighting in the inner courtyard. Ghost was leading her in the opposite direction, and she was ashamed of the relief she felt when she realized she wouldn’t have to join the fighters. Instead, she ran after Ghost, trying not to think about the piles of bodies that littered the courtyard of her home. _My people,_ she thought wildly. _These were my people._

 

As Ghost led her up the battlements, growling at any movement in the piles of the dead, she finally saw how the battle beyond Winterfell’s walls had gone.

 

It didn’t surprise her that the dead had entered the castle, of course not. Even with all the pitch and boiling oil they had stored for the siege, Jon had been sceptical about their ability to defend the outer walls.

 

“They don’t move like men,” he had said grimly. “They… scuttle, like spiders.”

 

Sansa could smell the pitch, the smoke and the burning flesh. Both the inner and outer trenches seemed to have been lit, and she doubted any of their men were outside the walls anymore. The Knights of the Vale and the Dothraki had been charged with flanking the enemy once the outer trench was breached and the Unsullied were embroiled in combat, and she could only hope that it had all worked out the way they had hoped. No flaming balls of fire lit up the sky, so the catapults were either destroyed or unmanned. They had been placed closest to the castle walls, behind even the inner trench, so that they would be the last to fall.

 

Even the dragons were gone. _What is happening?_

 

When Ghost howled, low and deep, she started in terror. Ghost wasn’t even looking at her. His paws were on the battlements, his body angled towards the moon, his howl a song that evoked the images of ancient magic. Had he ever made so much noise before? Before their last night in the world.

 

And then she saw Jon, a dull brown smudge past the burning flames, and understood Ghost’s agony. Jon was surrounded by the dead, his sword raised, and suddenly Sansa wanted to weep. There were so many of them, and Jon was but one man. _He’s going to die,_ she thought, wanting to wail with Ghost. She wished she could vault the battlements and stand next to Jon. Die with him. It was the only thing she could do right now.

 

Ghost’s whining and panting hid her own desperate sobs. “Jon!” she tried to yell, but it came out a broken whisper. She saw him fight, saw him tire. And she stood there, looking around for a weapon, sobbing afresh when she saw the bow and dragonglass arrows. She didn’t know how to use them, stupid and useless as she was. She tried, but the arrow wouldn’t even leave the bow. Her hands shook, and the bowstring was too tight for her. _Useless, pathetic, weak. Jon is going to die, and you stand here and weep._ He was so surrounded that Sansa couldn’t even see him anymore.

 

The wolves seemed to melt out of the shadows, materializing suddenly with howls that echoed Ghost’s. He yelped beside her, seemingly satisfied even while she was gripped with terror anew. Were these wights? Jon had mentioned undead horses, and Old Nan was fond of stories with ice spiders. Was this how Jon was to die? _He’s a wolf,_ she thought savagely. _He’s one of us, and he shouldn’t end like this_.

 

It only made sense to her once the pack finally attacked the enemy. _Friends,_ she realized. _They are friends._ How…? Ghost growled at something behind her in that moment, and she whirled around to face a nightmare.

 

The Ice Dragon. It landed with a crunch of walls and wood and stone, blue fire leaking out of a face that looked like it had been torn apart. Did it fight the other dragons? Sansa grabbed onto Ghost, too scared to cry, to move, to breathe, to do anything but stare. The rider, the Night King, he wasn’t perched atop his dragon. Was it too broken for him? Ghost moved one paw forward, but Sansa yanked him back to her side by the scruff. He came willingly, and she was glad for it. She would shatter into a million pieces if Ghost left her side now. It was selfish, oh so very selfish of her, but she did not want to be alone in death. If she had to die by dragonfire in the middle of the dead in her own courtyard, she could not find the courage to face her death alone.

 

The dragon was… sniffing, she supposed. It moved like an agitated madman, the wounds in its neck leaking fire and sending puffs of hot air at her. The more time it took to kill her, the more her panic faded away. Her heartbeat slowed, her hands stopped crushing Ghost’s fur in her panic, as if her body couldn’t sustain the panic for longer than a few moments. Her breath returned to her, and she just… looked. Bran was on the other side of that dragon. Why wasn’t it killing her?

 

Suddenly, it made sense to her. The sniffing, the stumbling... Ghost wasn’t making a single noise anymore. Did he know? Could he tell that the ice dragon had gone blind?

 

But blindness did not reduce its viciousness, or stop her from being terrified of it. She dove behind some debris as the dragon swung around wildly, closing her eyes in childish hope when she felt the stone at her back start to grow hot. _Too hot,_ she thought, _it’s too hot._ The stone was melting behind her. She leapt to another, trying to be quiet. She was holding her breath without any conscious decision to do so.

 

She nearly screamed in panic when Ghost slipped from her loose grip and ran to the wall behind her. _No,_ she thought hysterically. _No, no, no, come back. I can’t do this, no!_

 

The Ice Dragon turned away, but then someone-- _something--_ was behind her.

 

“Sansa,” Jon rasped in her ear. “Sansa.”

 

Now she did start to cry, sobbing like a madwoman as she tried to claw her way into him. She scrambled to get closer to him, nearly knocking Longclaw from his hand. Jon was safety. He’d keep her safe.

 

He said nothing other than her name, and she couldn’t even see his face with the way she had nearly climbed into his lap, but she could _feel_ him, strong and solid, and _hers._ She said nothing when he dragged her sideways, vaguely registering that the stone behind her was too hot once again. That was all the world was, now. Heat and pain and terror, and the awful screams of a dead dragon.

 

 _We’re facing a dragon,_ she thought, as if in a dream. _Like in a song of knights and fair maidens._

 

“Sansa, sweet girl, look at me,” he whispered, pulling her away from where she had hidden in his filthy jerkin, hidden from this awful world. “Look at me.”

 

If he didn’t sound so desperate, so broken, she wouldn’t have done it. Instead, she met his gaze. _I can be brave._ His face was awash in the blue light of the dragon’s fire. Ghost was beginning to growl again, impatient.

 

“You’re not hurt,” he said. It was a question, but wasn’t uttered as one. She wondered if he feared her answer a bit too much. She nodded anyways. _Father’s ghost came back to murder us._ “You’re alright.” He seemed ready to weep, but then the dragon roared once more, and Jon grit his teeth. He did not have time to weep, to stop.

 

And neither did she.

 

“What do we do?” she whispered, and Jon spun them once more. He rose to his feet in an impossibly graceful move, pushing her against a wall, back towards where he’d come from. Her back hit the brick, and she gasped. The heat was so stifling that she wondered how the wall was still standing. She was sure that she herself wouldn’t be standing if Jon wasn’t standing right in front of her, his body holding hers in place.

 

“I need to go to Bran,” he said in her ear. He nearly had to shout over the dragon’s roar. His voice was thick and raspy. He sounded so, so tired.

 

“Its blind,” she offered stupidly.

 

He moved his head back to stare at her for a split second. “Stay here.” It should have been a command, but his eyes made it look like a plea.

 

Before she could yank him back, before she could demand his strong arms around her once more, before she could give in to the need to hide herself in him again, he was slipping through her hold. _No!_ She thought, too terrified to yell it. She couldn’t watch him die.

 

And yet, she turned around to watch, just the same. It was a macabre form of hide and seek, one man facing off a mad dragon, and Sansa began to weep as she watched. Ghost was snarling once more, not caring about the sound. Jon was trying, he really was, but the dragon would target him every time he tried to move. It had been easier when they had been trying to move _away_ from the dragon. Going past it was insanity. _He’s going to die,_ she thought, as blue dragon fire moved impossibly closer to the rock at Jon’s back. She could see the tip of it begin to melt.

 

Something wet touched her hand, making her scream, but thankfully Jon couldn’t hear her. He kept trying to pass the dragon, unaware of her petrified amazement, unaware of the way she held her breath as she gazed at the newcomer.

 

“Nymeria,” she said slowly, testing out the name. _Is it really her? It can’t be._ And yet it was. Wolves with red snouts seemed to crowd behind the impossibly large grey wolf, leaping onto the wights that Sansa hadn’t even noticed. They seemed to be spilling out the doorway Jon had somehow locked behind himself. She nodded to Nymeria, marvelling at the size of the wolf. _Would Lady be this big too, if she lived? She always was the smallest of them._

 

Ghost yelped behind her, and Jon screamed. When she turned around, Jon was burning.

 

She screamed and ran to him, even as Nymeria leapt to help her brother. Jon was waving his arm wildly, the leather on fire, and Sansa’s heart was pounding so fast that she couldn't think at all. She dragged him behind the wall, as Jon had done with her, stumbling and sobbing. She pushed him into the mud and gore, turning and twisting his arm in the wet to put out the fire, apologizing all the while. She was certain she was crushing him, but he was _burning_. He was dying and she would be damned if she let him go like this.

 

“I’m fine!” he finally yelled. Or had he been yelling that all along? She didn’t know, and didn’t care. It took actual effort to step back, to stop crushing him, to let him rise.

 

Before he was even on his feet, the dragon screeched in a completely different way, as if it were yelping in pain. Her first crazy thought was that Nymeria had bitten him, but that couldn’t be true. Jon lunged at Sansa, pushing her to the wall again, to safety, before he peered around the wall. She pushed him away to do the same.

 

The dragon was flapping its wings, drunkenly moving around. She looked to Jon, who was still staring wide-eyed at the Ice Dragon. Ghost and Nymeria were howling, the rest of the smaller wolves filling the corridor. Had the direwolves done something after all?

 

The Ice Dragon was still leaking fire everywhere, so none of the wolves got close. Its master was probably calling. The thing took flight, drunkenly, like a broken creature. She watched in shock, unable to believe they were safe again, but Jon was already moving to the Godswood. The dragon turned, its blue eyes blank, and saw Jon sprint across the courtyard. It didn’t come back. It didn’t blast his blue fire. _How…? Why?_

 

“It might be a trap!” she yelled after Jon, but he shook his head.

 

“Bran!” he yelled back.

 

 _Bran._ She ran after him, running with the pack of wolves to go to her defenseless little brother. _But he’s not defenseless, is he? He is a warg._ She looked up at the Ice Dragon that had suddenly taken flight, and understood. _We’re coming, Bran. Thank you._


	3. Weirwood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's take the Night King down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, guys, I tried my best here. If you wanna somehow squint to see the Azor Ahai thing fitting in here, well... I tried to go in the "Starklings are Azor Ahai" direction. If that doesn't subvert your expectations, good. No one comes to fanfiction to get their expectations subverted.

The silence crawled over her skin like ants struggling up a hill.

 

The Godswood had always been quiet and serene, but this was different. The thick, ugly anticipation of  _ something _ hung heavy in the air. Sansa felt as if even the wind was holding back. Nothing moved in the darkness, the stillness eerie and unnatural. Jon’s steps slowed in front of her, became more cautious and careful. A hunter’s gait.

 

Apparently, her own feet were clumsy where his were not, because a twig snapped under her. Jon whirled, his eyes going wide when he saw she had followed him. He shook his head, pleading with his eyes. It was agonizing to shake her head in turn, to refuse his plea, but she could not go back outside. Nowhere was safe anymore. Here, next to him, she stood a chance of surviving the dead. She could not leave his side, could not resign herself to facing all the dead in the courtyard by herself. The Godswood was silent and less crowded with the enemy. Maybe that made it safer.

 

"Sansa," he whispered hoarsely, tender pleading in his gaze. "Please..."

 

Before she could explain her inexplicably intense need to stick to his side, Ghost let out a huff in warning.

 

Jon turned back around instantly, facing forward, his panting slowing down till she could barely hear it. A hunter once more. When he moved deeper into the godswood, she followed, trying her hardest to make as little sound as possible. Nymeria and her pack were completely silent behind her, their hackles raised.

 

The White Walkers stood out against the dark trees around them. She tried to count them, but her terror had stolen her breath and her wits. A dozen? More? Less?  _ Too many. Too many for a man and a pack of wolves.  _

 

Somehow they still hadn't been noticed. The White Walkers, in their eerie stillness, were watching something at the base of the weirwood.  _ Bran. They are focused on Bran _ . But then a couple of them shifted minutely, and she saw it wasn't just Bran they were looking at.

 

Theon was standing in front of Bran, his focus on his opponent, on the Night King who stood only steps away from the point of Theon’s spear. The Night King was a monstrosity that even her worst nightmares could never have conjured, with his crown of ice and his dark armor awash in the eerie blue glow Sansa had begun to associate with death. She would have screamed in her terror, but her lungs froze and her spit dried in her mouth. She didn't realize she had moved closer to Jon till her hand grabbed his jerkin, too warm underneath her hands, warmer than it should be.  _ Dragonfire _ , she realized. _ Let his arm go, he'll need it to protect our brother. _ But she didn't, and he didn't ask it of her yet. Instead, he shifted, blocking her view of the horror that lay ahead, of the way the Night King moved towards their brother. 

 

Bran was shaking his head. At the Night King? At them? She couldn't tell, but mayhaps Jon could. He was strung tight, like the bow she had tried to use earlier, every muscle coiled tight as if waiting for a command. Waiting for Bran's command. So she waited too, her gaze flitting from her brother to the Night King, to the army of White Walkers surrounding them. The two opposing forces took the measure of each other for a few precious seconds.  _ Where's Theon? _

 

"Now," said Bran, suddenly, in a whisper so soft that Sansa wondered if she had imagined it.

 

But Jon was moving before she could even blink, moving into the clearing, his sword piercing the exposed icy flesh of a White Walker before she could even comprehend what was happening. The creature let out an inhuman screech, falling to the ground in a showering of frost. Suddenly, there was nothing and no one where it had been standing. Theon moved too, his shock at their presence morphing quickly into determination as he moved to attack a White Walker. The others turned around and moved towards Jon, their movement unhurried, like they knew the outcome of this battle and weren't bothered. As one, they began to surround the men, some with weapons in their hands, and some without even that. The Night King didn't even look away from Bran, his expression amused, like a mother indulging a child.

 

Sansa heard the low rumble at her back, saw the wolves hesitate in their leaps forward, turning to face the entrance of the godswood. Somehow she knew that the Night King had summoned reinforcements. Wights leapt over walls and through trees, barely visible, shrieking in fury, and the wolves formed up around her at Nymeria’s howl. She gripped her dagger with one hand and Ghost’s fur with the other. The line of wolves held, mostly.

 

Jon fought on, too quick and graceful to keep track, too alive and warm where his opponents were dead and cold. His sword moved as an extension of his own arm, and he was completely silent. This wasn't a foe you reasoned with, or even taunted to submission. Here, it was only life or death. Theon’s weapon had reach, something that helped him as he began to tire, as he began to lean a bit too heavily on his spear. Sansa watched the gruesome dance play out, watched them silently protect each other’s back. Watched them protect her brother.

 

A wight slammed into Sansa, snapping misshapen teeth, and she screamed. But before Ghost could move towards her, Jon yelled, a White Walker fell, and the thing was dust. Several others fell behind it.  _ What? How? _

 

The wolf pack had split up, some attacking the wights that were pouring into the Godswood at her back, some attacking the White Walkers. They were dying too. She heard the whimpers suddenly cut off, saw them fall, and felt the terror around her heart squeeze tight. She saw the wolves attack the Night King, saw them fall like fleas off a dog. It wasn't working. Nothing was stopping him.

 

"He needs to be against the heart tree," Bran reminded them, like he had since last night. For someone staring down death, Bran seemed strangely unperturbed. Jon barely heard him, and grunted in reply. He couldn't get to the Night King. It would be too late. He was tiring of his game, Sansa could tell. His easy smile had vanished.

 

One of the White Walkers moved towards Theon’s open back, and Jon lunged. The creature twisted and pushed Jon in the chest with inhuman strength, and suddenly Jon was on his back. The pale icy sword glittered as the White Walker swung it, and then it was embedded in Theon’s armor. Theon made an awful, haunting sound, a strange gurgle that heralded death. 

 

Now Sansa did scream, making the wights behind her fight with renewed frenzy to break through the pack of wolves to get to her. Sansa's feet were moving before she realized it. The White Walker looked triumphant, looming over Jon now,  _ her  _ Jon, his foot planted on Jon’s chest, and he did not even see her approach.  _ This is madness _ , she thought, even as she raised her arm.  _ Madness, _ as the dagger plunged into the small blue space between neck and shoulder, as her dagger slipped out of her hand and to the ground when the White Walker crumbled into icy dust.

 

For a while, she couldn't understand what was happening at all. There was a screeching in her ear, and she wondered if it was her tired mind begging her for rest. Jon was trying to hand her the dagger back, but all the White Walkers had turned away from him. Something was happening. Jon wasn't even looking at the threat around him, he was saying something to her, he wasn't focusing, he needed to--

 

Jon heard the screeching in her head too, it seemed, and his head turned around so fast his hair whipped her nose. Something was happening.

 

At first she thought she was looking at some other supernatural being. There were wights and White Walkers and direwolves and dragons around, and now some new ceature jumping over a pile of dead Ironborn to attack the Night King in a flying leap that looked surreal. It took her what felt like an eternity to recognize her sister, to see the determination and anger in her beloved face. 

 

The Night King was not amused any longer. Quicker than thought, he whirled around to grab Arya by the throat, barely paying any attention to Jon running towards him. Arya hacked at his hand with her Valyrian dagger, and Jon attacked his undefended back with his own Valyrian steel. Arya dropped to the ground, her breath coming out in loud wheezes. Jon's back was undefended too. The White Walkers moved towards her siblings, quicker than she would have thought. Ghost growled menacingly next to her, and the pack began to form around her. She gripped her dagger better. 

 

“Only your dagger can do it, Arya,” Bran said behind her. His voice was stronger, surer.

 

Jon yelled as he impaled the Night King on Longclaw, even as Arya kept trying to kick their foe off his feet. The Night King barely seemed bothered by the fact that he had been run through with a sword. Instead, he was angry. The trio moved as Jon took small, agonizing steps, his muscles straining, each step bathed in agony. Bran watched as they moved closer and closer to the weirwood, and then his eyes rolled back into his head. Suddenly, the wolves at her back started to leave, one by one, and leapt onto the Night King. There were so few of the wolves left now. Sansa saw the Night King grab Arya’s arm, and the sickening crunch of bone breaking was loud in her ears. He strangled a wolf with barely a hand lifted, and tried to pull Longclaw out of himself. One of the White Walkers reached the fighters, breaking through the army of wolves, and grabbed a couple of them off his master. But then Arya’s dagger was in him, and he was gone. In the space that was created, Nymeria crashed into the Night King, pressing him back into the heart tree, and finally he was where they needed him to be.

 

_ He’s stuck _ , Sansa realized as the Night King tried to pull Longclaw from himself in a grotesque show of impotent strength. The sword was stuck inside the weirwood. It held fast, just as Bran had said it would. His inhuman strength didn’t work to free him. None of his generals remained to save him, dispatched by both Jon and Arya.  _ And me. I killed one too.  _ No more wights remained. Sansa moved forward, but Jon held out an arm, keeping her back. She was still close enough to see the fear creep into the Night King’s unnatural eyes.

 

“It shouldn’t have come to this,” Bran said softly, a kernel of true sorrow in his voice. It took Sansa a second to realize it was aimed at the Night King. Then her little brother nodded at Arya, who stepped forward, dagger in hand. Jon grabbed onto the hilt of Longclaw and pressed the Night King into the tree. Sansa could see his muscles strain.

 

When Arya’s dagger touched his chest, when she sliced him open, his scream was heartbreakingly human. She could sense the man he once was, in his panic, the man Bran had told them all about. Jon’s arm plunged into his chest, into his heart, and the Night King suddenly felt more human in his struggles than he had in his menacing posturing.

 

She watched, but she did not speak, afraid to be a part of this. Nymeria padded softly up to the Night King, staring with her golden eyes. Ghost was panting next to Jon, his hackles still raised, ready to defend.

 

But his help was not required. Jon’s hand retreated from the man’s mangled chest, the dark and wet piece of dragonglass clutched tight in his wrist, and suddenly the thrashing stopped. She wondered if he had died of the obvious hole in his chest, but then his gaze moved to Arya. His movements had seized, his body lethargic, but his eyes were ablaze. The unnatural blue seemed to be fading, and he seemed to almost smile when Arya’s dagger dug deep and pierced his mutilated heart.

 

And then the Night King was a smattering of glittering ice on the snow-covered ground, merely a scary story once more.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that this guy is dead, I really wanna get into the Jonsa of it all. This is going to be a series, y'all. Seriously debating calling it the "I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid ass decision I have elected to ignore it" series. But that's a lengthy name, innit?


	4. After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I did promise SOME Jonsa, didn't I? Even if it's only Sansa taking care of a completely exhausted Jon after the battle of Winterfell. There's a sponge bath in here ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Sansa is allowed to do something without a chaperone that she definitely wouldn’t be in canon, but Jon is wet and half-naked so please accept my hand wavey explanation of the LogisticsTM.
> 
> I refuse to see the Dothraki as a savage clan of rapers and pillagers. I am sorry, I just do not buy that this is all they are, and I have read enough in the books to know that they have their own intricate culture and they can’t ALL be bad. They are not one-tone in my story, so apologies if humanizing them bothers you.

The pandemonium was making it difficult to think, to focus, to do what needed to be done.

 

“Take a minute,” Arya said softly, her voice barely audible in the commotion of the Great Hall.

 

Sansa shook her head. “I need to help,” she said. Her hands never faltered where they was sewing her sister’s skin back over her cheekbone.  _ Don’t think of it as skin. Just sew. _

 

“You  _ are _ helping,” Arya retorted. She threw her arms out to encompass the whole of the Great Hall. The moaning soldiers in various forms of duress, the bustling women with their baskets of linen and pitchers of hot water, the maester with his clinking chains and harried looks. “You can help here more than I can. And you will. But taking a minute to yourself is not being selfish. You fought this battle, too, Sansa.”

 

Sansa didn’t know how to explain that she wasn’t sure she  _ could  _ stop. She embraced this noise and bustle, where she couldn’t hear herself think, where another soldier would take Arya’s seat once she was done. She couldn’t stop, for fear of her thoughts catching up to her. She feared she would never forget how the Night King looked, never forget what had happened in the Godswood, the sound Theon had made when he fell… No, she couldn’t forget any of it. But she could focus on what needed to be done, and outrun her thoughts. She was needed here.

 

And later, when she was alone in her chambers, she would mourn her dead. She would mourn Theon, her people, her castle. Now was not the time.

 

With a deep breath, she nodded at Arya and dismissed her. She looked around, noticing the Dothraki warrior who seemed to hesitate even with blood dripping from his split eyebrow into his eye. She smiled, though it took effort to keep it from falling into a grimace, but it grew more natural when the man seemed taken aback by her welcome. She gestured to the stool in front of her, and he sat down gingerly. His dark gaze was intense, as if he were reading her thoughts through her eyes, and she tried not to show any censure.  _ They protected us, fought with us.  _

 

“Do you speak the common tongue?” she asked as she threaded her needle.

 

He didn’t speak, merely tilting his head to regard her. Up close, he looked more boy than man, behind his oiled beard and his tinkling bells. Sansa set to work stitching up his brow, smiling when he hissed at the first touch of her needle. He seemed to take her gentle smile as an affront however, and sat still after that. 

 

“My brother says we find our true friends on the battlefield,” she said, knowing he didn’t understand her. “Our father taught him that.”

 

“Vorsa,” he said softly in return, gesturing at her hair. 

 

Sansa frowned, flipping her hair away from her face with the back of her bloodied hand.  _ What about my hair? _ “Hair,” she supplied, and he nodded.

 

Maester Wolkan approached her as the man stood to take his leave, and bowed to her. “My lady,” he said, eyeing the departing Dothraki with suspicion. “You should rest.”

 

Sansa shook her head. “I’m not doing anything too strenuous,” she replied. “Where’s Jon?” 

 

“No one seems to have seen him, my lady. He was last seen entering the castle. With you.”

 

“Has anyone checked the courtyards? He might be helping carry the survivors in.”

 

The maester hesitated, color high in his cheeks. “Maybe… My lady, have you… ah. Did he seem in good enough health, the last you saw him?”

 

Sansa stopped fiddling with her thread to arch a brow at him. “He was walking on his own two legs, if that’s what you mean.”

 

“Ah,” said the maester again, nodding. “Maybe… he might be in the barracks, my lady.”

 

“The barracks are empty,” she said, starting to thread a needle again. “If he wants to rest, there are other places to do so. I might even find him a feather bed.”

 

The maester began fiddling with the chains around his throat. “There are… women, my lady. In the barracks, that is. They… they are--well, that is… Sometimes, when a man’s blood is up, he needs… well. These are... fallen women, in from Wintertown and the like. Some of the men have been seen… visiting them.”

 

Her thread slipped off the side of the needle she was threading. She blinked, realizing what the maester was trying to tell her.  _ Jon might have gone to see to his… needs.  _ She hadn’t even thought of that, even though it was something Sansa knew men did once they were done with battle.  _ When a man’s blood is up, anything with tits looks good. _

 

“Where’s the dragon queen?” she asked before she could stop herself. She wanted to take the words back into her foolish mouth as soon as they were out.

 

“She was seen walking up the stairs,” replied the maester. He elected not to treat her leap of logic as anything out of the ordinary. “She is probably in her chambers, my lady, being looked after by her people.”

 

_ While I look after hers. Is Jon one of her people now? Is he in there, with her? _ This time, she was able to keep her words in her throat, no matter how they seemed to poison her. “He burned his arm,” she said, motioning to another man who had a nasty cut that needed tending. “Have a tincture of aloe and honey ready for when he is found.” She realized she was gritting her teeth and let out a breath.

 

When Maester Wolkan left, she couldn’t focus on the arm she was stitching. Her gaze kept wandering the hall, looking for Jon’s dark curls.

 

They found him sometime later, asleep in the small chambers he used to have as a child. She was assisting Maester Wolkan when a boy came running to inform them, and she accompanied him and a couple of chambermaids to see to his wounds. There was no fire in the hearth, and one of the girls quickly bent to the task. Jon was lying sideways on the bed, facedown in a picture of abject exhaustion. His clothes were all still on him, Longclaw discarded on the dirty rushes, along with his cloak. He still had his boots on.

 

Maester Wolkan set the girls to getting hot water to wash him down, even as he began discarding Jon’s filthy clothing. The lack of reaction from Jon was surprising--he didn’t move, didn’t even flinch. If it weren’t for the steady rise and fall of his chest, Sansa would have worried he was dead. His weight was a bit too much for Maester Wolkan, so Sansa helped him by slipping her arms under his shoulders and dragging him to a better position. His head lolled on her shoulder. Jon didn’t react even when they positioned his limbs like puppeteers, maneuvering him onto his back. 

 

Maester Wolkan saw her worry and tried to console her. “He is exhausted, my lady.” He smiled gratefully when Sansa took most of Jon’s weight, letting him take off his filthy jerkin. “There’s only so much punishment a body can take before it refuses to cooperate, and the battle tonight exposed everyone’s limits, I daresay. There was no rest to be had, and it lasted all night. He is going to need a--” He broke off with a hiss when he saw the bruises on Jon’s torso.

 

Sansa froze too, a soiled undertunic in her hands. There was a tapestry of ugly purple and black bruises running from Jon’s shoulders to where they disappeared beneath his breeches. She saw the old scars, the ones Jon had told her about, the ones made from the wounds that had taken his life. Her eyes began to fill with tears of impotent fury at the punishment his body and soul had gone through, and she shook her head to clear it. She would not cry like some simpering idiot. Not now. Jon’s innocence would be something else she mourned in the privacy of her own chambers. She noted that his arm hadn’t been burned after all, saved by his ugly jerkin. She would put some aloe and honey on it just to be certain.

 

His breeches stubbornly stuck to his legs, too sticky with mud and gore, and Maester Wolkan paused for a moment to check if she would leave.

 

“I have seen you cut a man’s leg off today,” she said quietly. “I won’t leave him now, when I can finally help him, for some outdated sense of propriety.”

 

The Maester didn’t look surprised. Instead, he nodded, letting her help him yank the breeches off. They were filthy beyond repair, and might need to be burned later. Jon wasn’t even shivering, lying there in his smallclothes. She wanted to shake him, to demand he open his eyes and look at her, but instead she helped cover him with the furs. They were barely large enough, and Sansa suddenly remembered that Jon had lived in these chambers as a child.

 

“The blood doesn’t seem to be his,” said the maester quietly, wetting washcloths for them both. He nodded to the blood splattered all over Jon’s neck and chest. “Seems like it belongs to the enemy.”

 

_ Or his fellow soldiers, _ Sansa thought. She picked up one of his arms as Maester Wolkan picked up the other and began to clean. The weight of it was almost too much.  _ Deadweight, _ she thought hysterically.  _ But he’s not dead.  _ She had to clamp the hand between her jaw and shoulder to keep the arm outstretched. Maester Wolkan was doing the same. It was peaceful now, both of them quickly and efficiently cleaning Jon of the grime and filth of war. The girls had left to go help the kitchens in putting out a decent morning meal.

 

Sansa almost screamed when the knocks boomed on the chamber doors. Her hand twitched wildly where it was clearing mud from Jon’s neck, and Maester Wolkan sounded as rattled as she felt when he called in whoever it was.

 

“Lady Lyanna, maester,” said the panting boy. He couldn’t have been older than the girl he spoke of. “Seems like she’s crushed some of her ribs there, beggin’ your pardon, milady, she’s in some fierce agony--”

 

“Go,” said Sansa softly. “I can finish here, by myself. There aren’t any major injuries that you are needed for.”

 

“But, my lady--” 

 

The Maester was almost certainly going to lecture her about propriety, so she cut him off. “My  _ brother  _ needs to be taken care of, and you’re needed down in the hall, Maester.”

 

He bowed his head, gave her some of the vials he had brought to tend to Jon, and left. Sansa heaved a sigh and returned to her task. 

 

The bruises that covered Jon looked painful if not serious, and she tried to be careful when she wiped over them with her wet washcloth. It was just the two of them, like it had been for so long before southern queens had shattered their fragile, newfound peace with their threats and demands. It was selfish to think of Jon as hers, but in this quiet moment, with the rest of the castle beyond the door of his childhood chambers, she could admit to herself that life was simpler when it was just them.  _ He had laughed a lot more,  _ she thought.  _ Even with the end of the world coming. It used to make his eyes crinkle. _

 

When she touched the ugly scar over his heart, careful of the purple bruise around it, Jon began to move.

 

She froze at his sluggish movement, a mild, sleepy adjusting of the chest she was touching.  _ He is trying to get away from the pain, _ she realized. She gentled her hand, wondering if he would wake up.

 

For a few long moments, he didn’t. The water in the bowl turned pink, then red, then almost black, but still he didn’t open his eyes. She set that bowl aside and picked up the one left next to the fire for her, switched out her washcloth. Jon’s eyelashes fluttered and his brow furrowed when he felt her firm grip on her ankle. He mumbled something, but when she peeked up to check, he was still asleep, though the frown had deepened. 

 

Jon’s legs, like the rest of his body, were both muscular and dirty. There was mud that had somehow made it through his boots and his thick woolen socks, and Sansa gripped his ankle to scrub at it. There were wounds near his right knee, claw marks running halfway down his calf, red and painful. A wight must have tried to bring him down.

 

“Sansa,” he said suddenly, so softly that she might have imagined it.

 

“Shh,” she soothed, rising up to look at him. It seemed absurd yet totally natural to coo at a man grown, older than her, a veteran of many battles.

 

But he wasn't opening his eyes. Either he was too tired or… Still asleep? She hesitated, wet cloth clasped to her chest, frowning at him. "Jon?" He didn't reply, so she bent to clean up his wounds and thighs. He grunted, then flinched away.

 

His lashes fluttered and finally, finally, he was awake. "What… Sansa?" His was a mere rasp, not unlike the crackle of the flames next to them.

 

She tried to smile reassuringly at him. "It's alright. It's all over now. You can rest."

 

Color rose high in his cheeks, and she belatedly realized she was still kneeling at the foot of the bed, hand on his thigh. She stood up. “You needed cleaning,” she explained hastily. “Before I apply the tinctures.”

 

He just stared at her, uncomprehending, so tired she could feel tears prick at the edges of his eyes.  _ I am tired too, _ she reasoned.  _ Tired and emotional. _

 

He looked down at his own body, his movements sluggish and exhausted. The color would not leave his cheeks even at he looked at how exposed he was. “I can do it,” said Jon. He tried to sit up, to take the rag from her, but his arms wouldn’t cooperate. He fell back to the bed like a newborn foal trying to stand for the first time. She was cooing at him again before she knew it.

 

“I only have to do your legs,” she told him, soothing a hand over his shoulder. “The Maester did the back when we took of the tunic, it’s alright… I’ll do this, Jon. Don’t worry.” When he still wouldn’t stop squirming, trying and failing to sit up, she grabbed his chin and looked him right in the eye. “Stop it. Let me take care of you.” Her voice was firm yet gentle, and he nodded.

 

She was very aware of his gaze on her. It made her jittery, made her more careful in the way she gripped his leg. His muscles were tensing beneath her hands now, and she knew he was embarrassed. She made nonsensical soothing sounds again, once or twice, but mostly they were quiet.

 

When she reached a little too high on his thigh, he jerked away with a huff. At first, intent on her work as she was, she thought it was because of the purple bruising he had received from riding his dragon. It took her a few moments to realize he was probably uncomfortable with the intimacy of it. She stepped away, resolutely not looking at his smallclothes.

 

“Does your arm hurt,” she asked, as she brought the tinctures to his bed. He looked uncomprehending once again. “You burned it, remember?” He shook his head no. “Would you like some water for your throat?” The nod at that was thoughtful, as if he couldn’t really tell what his body needed at the moment, but it seemed like a good idea. She poured him a cup and held it to his mouth. “Are words too much effort?”

 

“No,” he lied. 

 

Once he drank, he did so thirstily, gulping noisily as she tried to keep up. She wiped his chin when he was done, and set about applying nettle paste to his wounds, and heating tinctures to his bruises. “You’re more purple than white,” she said, feeling his gaze on her bent head.

 

He grunted. “Arya?”

 

“She’s around here, somewhere,” she said. “Helping in cleaning up the yards, probably. She’s alright.” She felt him nod. “Probably has bruises like yours, though. I should have insisted she let me see, but she didn’t want to undress for me.”

 

There was silence for a while as she worked. Jon’s muscles bunched and tensed sometimes, but mostly he was too tired for even that involuntary reaction. “Where’s… There is no one else here,” he said.

 

“I didn’t need anyone else here,” she replied.

 

“You’re tired.” Now he sounded a little more like himself, a little more stubborn. “You need to rest. They should help their Lady, shouldn’t they? Look after her when she is so stubborn she won’t do it herself--”

 

“Jon,” she stopped him with an amused smile that seemed too wrong for this bleak dawn but so right for this stupid conversation. “Stop it already, I will rest once I am done. It’s not my fault you have the entire map of Westeros painted over you.”

 

He shut up and let her work after that.  _ He’s hoping I finish quickly,  _ she realized.  _ He’s lying there covered in bruises and he is worried about me.  _ She couldn’t argue too much, though. Now that he was awake and almost completely taken care of, she was realizing how tired she was, too. The fatigue of the night had settled deep in her bones, and her final movements were sluggish and strangely disjointed.

 

By the time she finished, though, he had fallen back asleep. She smiled at the way his lashes fluttered when she used her hand to comb some of the matted mess of his hair away from his face. _ Her gentle warrior. _ He started to wake when she moved away from him, sounding as distressed as Ghost sometimes did when she didn’t have time to pet him, and she smiled. 

  
Without really thinking about it, Sansa washed her hands and face, took off her belt, letting it fall next to his cloak, and slipped into bed next to him.  _ Only for an hour or so, _ she lied to herself.  _ I have work to do. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Vorsa' means fire in Dothraki, not hair like Sansa thought.
> 
> I have already finished the first chapter of the next fic in this series, so please consider subscribing. Its the girls reacting to RLJ.
> 
> Clinical exhaustion is a thing that totally happens to athletes and the like where they literally are unable to move because their muscles don’t listen to them. Fun fact, Kit busted his excellent ass so much on the set of Pompeii (not only to get those xylophone abs but also because they had epic sword fights to rehearse all the time) that he got clinical exhaustion and was physically unable to get up and go to set. A doctor was called, if I remember correctly.


End file.
